“Professor Maldague, who was among the wretched prisoners callously picked out one after another for slaughter, and who had miraculously escaped death, could not control the profound emotion which overwhelmed him. On that fatal day the crowd of people were forbidden to look at the atrocities committed by civilised Germany, but a woman who happened to be near Professor Maldague ventured nevertheless, and saw that the victims marked out for expiation were compelled to lie face downwards on the paving-stones. Then they were killed by shots in the nape of the neck, the back or the head.
“The majority of the victims consequently lay with skulls fractured, not merely as a result of shots, but of blows from the butt-end of rifles. Even that was not enough. All the bodies which were recovered—the medical reports assure us on this point—had been pierced through with bayonet thrusts. Some had their legs and arms broken. Two bodies only had no wound. A post-mortem examination of them will be made to discover the causes of death.
“Mme. Van Ertrijck then recognised at the edge of the pit her husband, aged sixty years, the well-known cigar manufacturer, and her son, aged twenty-seven years; then appeared the bodies of a Belgian soldier, who could not be identified, and of a young lad not fifteen years old. The following victims were afterwards identified: Charles Munkemer, husband of Amélie Marant, born 1885; Edgard Bicquet, brewer at Boort-Meerbeek, whose family, known throughout Louvain, lives in the Rue de la Station; the retired Belgian Major Eickhorn, aged sixty years, inventor of short-range cartridges; A. Van de Gaer, O. Candries, Mme. A. Bruyninckx, née Aug. Mariën; Mme. Perilleux, aged about sixty years. But on turning over the ground we discovered a second tomb, which contained seven other corpses concealed under thirty centimetres of earth.
“On the next day the melancholy task was resumed. In quite a small pit two more bodies were brought to light: that of Henri Decorte, an artisan of Kessel-Loo, and that of M. Van Bladel, curé of Hérent. There was not a sound when the wretched priest’s tall form was disinterred. R. P. Claes merely gasped, ‘The curé of Hérent!’ The poor man was seventy-one years old” (see the Temps of 5th February, 1915).
At Nomény
On the 20th August, 1914, the 8th Bavarian Regiment entered Nomény in command of Colonel Hannapel. “According to a story told by one of their soldiers,” said the French Commission of Inquiry, “their leaders had told them that the French tortured the wounded by tearing out their eyes and gashing their limbs. Thus they were in a fearful state of unusual excitement. From all sides came the rattle of rifle shots. The wretched inhabitants, whom the dread of fire drove from their cellars, were shot down like game, some in their domiciles and others on the public road.
“Messrs. Sanson, Pierson, Lallemand, Adam, Jeanpierre, Meunier, Schneider, Raymond, Dupoucel, Hazatte, father and son, were murdered on the street by rifle shots. M. Killian, seeing himself threatened with a sabre stroke, put his hands on his neck to protect himself. Three of his fingers were cut off and his throat cut open. An old man of eighty-six years old, M. Petitjean, who was seated in his armchair, was struck by a ball which cracked his skull, and a German thrust Mme. Bertrand in front of the body, saying to her, ‘You saw that ⸺!’ M. Chardin, municipal councillor and acting mayor, was ordered to supply a horse and carriage. He had hardly promised to do all he could to comply, when he was killed by a shot. M. Prevot, who saw the Bavarians rushing into the chemist’s shop of which he was in charge, told them that he was the chemist, and that he would give them all that they wanted, but three shots rang out and he fell with a heavy groan. Two women who happened to be with him escaped, but were pursued with blows from the butt-ends of rifles up to the approaches to the railway station, where they saw in the garden and on the road many corpses heaped together.
“Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon the Germans forced their way into Mme. François’ butcher’s shop. Thereupon she came out of her cellar with her son Stub and an employee named Contal. As soon as Stub came to the threshold of the outside door he fell, seriously wounded by a rifle shot. Then Contal, who escaped into the street, was immediately murdered. Five minutes afterwards, as the death-rattle was still in Stub’s throat, a soldier leant over him and dispatched him with a blow of a hatchet in the back.
“The most tragic incident of these horrible scenes took place at the house of M. Vassé, who had gathered together a number of people in his cellar in the suburb called Nancy. About four o’clock a party of about fifty soldiers forcibly entered the house, bursting open the door and the windows, and immediately set fire to it. The refugees then endeavoured to escape, but they were felled one after another at the exit. M. Mentré was first murdered. His son Léon then fell with his little sister, eight years old, in his arms. As he was not quite dead, the end of the barrel of a gun was put to his head and his brains blown out. Then it was the turn of the Kieffer family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder; the father, a little son of ten years old and a little girl of three years old were shot. The scoundrels fired at them again as they were lying on the ground. Kieffer, who was lying on the ground, got a fresh bullet in the forehead; his son had the top of his skull blown off by a rifle shot. Then M. Strieffert and Vassé, one of his sons, were murdered, and M. Mentré was struck by three bullets, one in the left leg, another in the arm on the same side, and a third on the forehead, which was merely grazed. M. Guillaume, who was dragged out into the street, met his death there. Finally, a young girl called Somonin, aged seventeen years, came out of the cellar with her young sister Jeanne, aged three. The latter had her elbow nearly carried off by a bullet. The eldest threw herself on the ground and pretended to be dead, remaining for five minutes in fearful agony. A soldier kicked her and called out, ‘Kaput’ (done for).